'This represents another example of Da'esh's blatant disregard for international law'

US-led coalition airstrikes continued to hit ISIS targets in
northern Iraq in the first half of September, as Iraqi ground
forces reportedly prepare to launch operations to retake the
terrorist group's biggest remaining city, Mosul.

On September 12, three strikes hit an ISIS headquarters
building that Operation Inherent Resolve officials have said was
also used as a chemical-weapons facility.

In those strikes, part of which are shown in the GIF below, "U.S.
F-15Es, A-10s, B-52s, F-16s, and Marine Corps F-18Ds destroyed
more than 50 points of interest, removing a significant chemical
threat to innocent Iraqis," a US Air Force Central Command
official told Business Insider by email.

"Intelligence indicated that Da’esh converted a pharmaceutical
plant complex into a chemical weapons production capability,
using chlorine or mustard gas," the US Air Force Central Command
official told Business Insider, referring to ISIS by another
name.

"This represents another example of Da’esh’s blatant disregard
for international law and norms."

Smoke
rises after airstrikes from the US-led coalition against Islamic
State militants in a village east of Mosul, Iraq, May 29,
2016.Reuters/Azad
Lashkari

Chemical-weapons facilities in Mosul were targeted by the US-led coalition earlier
this year, around the time US special-operations forces captured
Sulayman Dawud al-Bakkar, who worked on chemical and biological weapons
under Saddam Hussein and became known as ISIS' "emir" of chemical and
traditional weapons manufacturing.

In Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, the highly regarded science
facilities of the city's university were one of the most valuable spoils taken by ISIS when
the group captured the city in summer 2014.

By spring 2015, dozens of scientists and engineers working for
the terrorist group had set up shop on the university's labs and
workspaces, building chemical bombs and suicide vests, The Wall
Street Journal reported in April 2016.

"The University of Mosul is the best Daesh research center in the
world," an Iraqi general told The Journal at the time. "Trainees go to
Raqqa, [Syria], then to Mosul university to use the existing
facilities."